Red Skull in The Avengers? I don’t think so.

There is a rumor currently going around that Red Skull may be the secondary villain of The Avengers film. Interestingly enough, it all seems to have started with a press release from a toy company.

HeroClix, a brand of collectable game figures based on comic book characters is putting out a new set of figurines based on the Marvel Film Universe, the Avenger’s Movie HeroClix set.

The set includes the members of the Avengers: Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, The Hulk, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Nick Fury, plus over a dozen other figures representing the support and villain cast for each of the heroes.

A recent promotional release announced two of the villains in the set: Loki and Red Skull. Loki is the primary villain from Thor’s story, who has already been announced at the villain for the new film. Red Skull is the arch-enemy of Captain America, defeated in the first film. Mentioning them together like that seems like it may be an accidental announcement of who the secondary villain might be for the film, but this is unlikely to be true.

First, the set is not only about the Avengers film. It has all the heroes and villains from the entire Marvel Film Universe, which includes lots of characters who are not in this upcoming film. It’s more likely that these two villains were chosen only because they are the most recognizable villains from the Marvel films so far (Spider-Man is not part of the Marvel Film Universe).

Second, Red Skull could never be a secondary villain, his personality is too strong, and his presence is too large. More likely, if he comes back into the franchise of films, he will return as the villain in the second Captain America film.

Third, Loki and Red Skull are too similar to be co-villains. They are both essentially the same type of villain. They are arrogant and political archetypes who want to rule the world. Co-villains in a film have to be complimentary types. Think of all the co-villains you know from super hero films in the past. You won’t find any who are so similar to one another; it just doesn’t work without a lot of plot blindness on the part of the villains.

Finally, we already have some clues as to who the secondary villain might be. We’ve got a few photos of mo-cap actors lying among the remains of crashed vehicles, seemingly extra-terrestrial, so unless Red Skull took a rocket out to another planet and recruited some little green men, the clues we have don’t make sense, and the likelihood that there will be three villainous forces in the film is small.

While it’s true that the end of Captain America: The First Avenger left the fate of Red Skull ambiguous, I think we still have to wait and see who the secondary villain of the upcoming film really is.